


The Aftermath

by lucy2point_oh



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst, F/M, Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 04:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5814547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucy2point_oh/pseuds/lucy2point_oh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war was over, the battle had been won, but Lucy didn’t feel like celebrating.<br/>Lucy looked around her empty apartment, wondering why it felt so cold in the middle of summer. Everything was untouched, just as she’d left it before the Spriggan 12 had attacked. Brandish had returned it to its normal size before setting off somewhere, mumbling something about troublesome friendships while she disappeared on her own journey.<br/>Everything was in its right place, but there was something missing. Something Lucy couldn’t quite put her finger on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Aftermath

The war was over, the battle had been won, but Lucy didn’t feel like celebrating.

Lucy looked around her empty apartment, wondering why it felt so cold in the middle of summer. Everything was untouched, just as she’d left it before the Spriggan 12 had attacked. Brandish had returned it to its normal size before setting off somewhere, mumbling something about troublesome friendships while she disappeared on her own journey. 

Everything was in its right place, but there was something missing. Something Lucy couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

She walked through each room slowly, her eyes trailing over trinkets she’d picked up over the course of two years of missions. Each one, a precious memory. It wasn’t until she reached her bed room that she even realised she was crying. And on the bed in front of her, the reason why. She sunk to the floor in front of her bed, clutching the covers in her fists tightly. The air was colder in there. 

Her breathing turned to hiccups as she choked on her tears, and she rubbed at her face angrily. She hadn’t cried since he had left.

He had left.

He was gone.

It hit her then, why everything felt different. Natsu was gone. He would never creep into her room while she slept, or sit in her favourite arm chair, waiting for her to get home. Would never tease her, go on missions with her, eat with her, wait for her to walk into the guild and propose a stupid idea that she would turn down. He would never fight with Gray, or Elfman, or Gajeel or Laxus. Never challenge Erza or Gildarts to a duel ever again. Never help Wendy on a mission, mentor Romeo, play pranks with Wakaba or Macau. Never fly with Happy, drink with Cana, beg Mira for food again.

He would never smile with her, laugh with her, cry with her, ever again.

And it was her fault.

She sobbed harder, feeling her heart crack with each gasp of air. He was never coming back to her. He was somewhere in the past, 400 years away, sent with the rest of the slayers. With Zeref. With Acnologia. Somewhere behind a massive door that connected time like nothing else could, that had been smashed with the magic in her keys. Her keys. She’d forced such sadness upon them. Forced them to say goodbye to their friends. 

They didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve it. Any of it.

It wasn’t fair.

She threw things, breaking them with loud crashes that echoed around her empty apartment with each throw. Her chair splintered against a wall. Her pillow hit the light in the centre of the ceiling, causing it to shatter and shower her with glass and darkness. Perfumes on her boudoir smashed the mirror into a thousand sparkling pieces, and she could see her face, red and puffy and oh so heartbroken in broken fragments on the floor. 

She began to scream. 

Her table was overthrown. Her blinds were ripped from their hangings. Photo frames lay shattered on the floor. All of her clothes were strewn across the floor, piling on top of the books that she had already pulled from the shelf. And only the scarf that lay on top of the duvet on her bed was safe from her rampage.  
When it was over, she sat upon the mess on her floor with the scarf in her hands. His scarf. The only thing he had left behind before he faded into nothing beyond the door.

She really hated that door. She hated what it had done to the family she had only just brought back together. She hated that she missed him so much, that she couldn’t face her guild members, her family, after what she had done. She hated Zeref, for bringing Natsu into her life and tearing him away when she had just got him back. For creating an army that had caused so much death on her continent. For giving her a way out, telling her she could save everyone with one simple magic. 

She hated herself for opening the door, not meeting his eyes as he was slowly erased from the world. She hated herself for closing the door, and leaving him alone in the darkness. She hated herself for leaving Happy crying in front of the door where his best friend, his family, had just disappeared behind. She hated herself for everything.

Lucy wasn’t sure how long she sat on the floor in the mess she had made, but she knew she fell asleep sometime during the night with the scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. 

\--

When morning came, she wanted to run and disappear, like he had the year before. But she had no intentions of coming back. And that was what made her stand, wipe her face with a weary arm, and walk out of her apartment.

That was what made her walk through the streets as the villagers slowly crept into outside, their cheering and clapping slowly dissipating into whispers and murmurs as they realised she wouldn’t celebrate with her.

Because there was nothing to celebrate.

That was what made her pause at the big gates that led into the building that she called home. The one she had shared with her new family. The family that had taken her in, despite her past, and protected her, loved her, accepted her for who she was. The family that she had met because of him.

She could feel herself crying as she looked up at the doors, remembering the way he had thrown out his arms that first day and proudly led her into her new home. She remembered their first mission onto the mountain top where he had grumped and told her to go home because she was cold. She was colder now then she was back then.

She forced herself to walk into the guild where Christina sat in ruins beside it. Forced herself to ignore the sudden silence that accompanied her entrance. To walk up to the small blue cat that sat in the middle of the bar, crying almost as loud as she had the night before.

Without a word she sat beside the cat, let him crawl into her lap and smush his face into her chest as he cried. This was familiar. This was family.

She remembered that she wasn’t the only one breaking.

She wasn’t the only one who had loved Natsu more than anything.

She wasn’t the only one to lose her family.

She looked around the bar with tears clouding her vision, seeing what she hadn’t the night before. The way Carla and Lily sat with Levy near the door, their silence somehow more heart breaking than her tears. The way that Gray and Erza stood off to the side with their faces drawn, seeming to be in another world. The way the Raijinshu sobbed in the corner, mourning for the loss of their leader. No one talked. No one had to.

The guild was cold. 

No one smiled, or laughed, or threw chairs at each other. Cana wasn’t drinking, Wakaba wasn’t smoking. Mira wasn’t serving drinks, Lisanna wasn’t smiling.

The Master wasn’t there.

Lucy had brought them all of that sadness. She could feel the knot in her chest growing as she looked at every member of Fairy Tail. She shouldn’t be there. She had taken them away.

When she left the guild, no one stopped her. No one called out for her to be careful on the way home as she walked along the rocks on the river side. No one welcomed her into her apartment. No one waved at her from her arm chair. No one was hiding in her bathroom. 

She shivered in the cold that seeped into her bones and she knew in that moment that she would never be warm again.

Not without his flames.

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like writing something sad, and I had to fight myself quite hard to not give this story a happy ending. To play off the theory that Lucy sends the Dragon Slayers back to their time 400 years ago, dealing with the aftermath. Hopefully this doesn't have Lucy too OOC, I'd love to hear back from everyone! Thanks for reading!


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